


standing on their ashes

by frostbitten_cheeks



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostbitten_cheeks/pseuds/frostbitten_cheeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They fall asleep in the same bed and Dan wakes up alone, and they meet in the kitchen and laugh over coffee and unspoken watchfires and pretend, because that’s what they do best.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <span class="small">(written for the quote: <i>it’s hard to get over him when you’re underneath him.</i> And sometimes break-ups aren’t clean and aren’t messy but are somewhere in-between, and when things aren’t defined it’s harder to get over them.)</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	standing on their ashes

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this](http://phanfic.tumblr.com/post/102526693557) quote prompt.
> 
> (link to this fic [on tumblr](http://literaryphan.tumblr.com/post/102682369096/standing-on-their-ashes))

It only ever happens at night.

Maybe it’s the darkness, or maybe it’s because humans are less defined at night, less sharp and more blurred around the edges, boundaries smudging with the colours of the background.

Dan doesn’t know where the boundaries are at night. He’s not sure he cares.

They eat dinner and everything is okay and they watch television and everything is okay and the room grows dark when the show ends and then they’re kissing, and they pretend everything is okay because it’s easier that way, easier than admitting it’s really not.

They fall asleep in the same bed and Dan wakes up alone, and they meet in the kitchen and laugh over coffee and unspoken watchfires and pretend, because that’s what they do best.

 

 

-

 

 

The days are a whirlwind of inner jokes and easy conversations and tangible spaces and boundaries, because they worked so hard to get here, so hard to keep everything afloat, that when it stopped being difficult they stopped wishing things would be different because they were too grateful to care.

The nights have no boundaries, no jokes or conversations, and nothing is easy so they close the spaces and they crash into each other and they don’t deal, because like everything else, they were only pretending they didn’t want things to be different.

 

 

-

 

 

Dan thinks they should be over it, over them. He thinks if anyone knew they’d tell them this is unhealthy and dangerous and just because they do it when it’s dark it doesn’t mean it’s not real. He thinks it’s been enough time that it’s a little ridiculous that they’re  _not_  over it, but the truth is he doesn’t know how much time it’s been because it’s hard keeping track of when you broke up with someone when you spend most of your nights having sex with them.

He thinks he should be over Phil by now but he knows he’s not, and in the days he pretends he is and Phil pretends he doesn’t care, but in the nights they forget how to pretend so they fuck each other instead, because it’s easier than dealing.

He thinks this would probably blow up in their faces and paint the flat with the colour of their broken hearts but he doesn’t know how, doesn’t know when, so he pretends, pretends he’s not waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

 

-

 

 

The morning’s sun lights the kitchen brightly and Phil smiles and offers him a mug and reads him funny tweets from his phone while leaning against the counter.

Dan takes the mug and settles against the wall, listens to Phil’s voice and thinks of how they were huddled against that same counter the previous night, panting and hazy and half-naked, and then chooses to give up and leaves the memories scattered on the pavement.

 

 

-

 

 

When they broke up, Phil’s eyes were downcast and Dan’s were on the hallway wall over Phil’s shoulder, and they didn’t look at each other because if they did they probably won’t be strong enough to do this, and they didn’t even know why they wanted to be strong but they were too scared to ask.

“It’s for the best,” Dan swallowed and pretended he believed himself, and Phil nodded but didn’t look at him and said, “Yeah.”

They fucked against the wall that night because the bed held too many memories, and in the morning Dan was too scared to look at Phil because he was afraid they may have blurred the lines too much, afraid Phil would think it wasn’t really over because exes don’t usually have sex the night they break up.  

Instead, Phil looked up from his cereal and smiled, and Dan knew it was fake and Phil knew he knew, but he didn’t try to kiss Dan and when they sat on the sofa later that day the space between them was so solid Dan thought he could probably grasp it in his fist and shove it in his chest. They didn’t bump shoulders and they didn’t lean against each other and something changed, it did, but Dan knew it didn’t change enough for this to be closure because they still fell asleep sweaty in one bed that very same night.

 

 

-

 

 

Phil’s fiddling with his shirt and it’s pitch black in the room and it doesn’t make taking clothes off easier, but Dan doesn’t help him because winter is coming and Dan thinks too much when it’s winter, and Phil breathes shapes onto his skin and Dan asks, “Why are we still doing this?”

He doesn’t draw his fingers back from Phil’s bare shoulder though, just digs them deeper into the flesh, and Phil leans his forehead against Dan’s stomach and sighs and asks, “Do you want to stop?” and Dan doesn’t have to think before he says, “No,” and Phil looks up and Dan can’t see his eyes in the darkness when he says, “That’s why.”

Dan thinks maybe this is a really stupid decision and wonders if maybe they should stop and knows he really should be wanting to, but he doesn’t, and he decides to stop thinking about it because Phil’s body heat is better than questioning his entire life, and maybe that was the problem all along.

 

 

-

 

 

In the afternoons they play video games and Phil makes jokes when Dan curses and they lean their bodies against each other when the laughter is too much, and they’re okay, they really are, and sometimes Dan is even fooled to believe they aren’t pretending.

But even though their bodies are touching the spaces are still there, tangible and solid and perpetual, because nothing is awkward in the day but maybe that’s a lie they forced themselves into living, and maybe the only reason the day isn’t awkward is because they separated the night from it, and that’s a lie in itself, because humans aren’t entitled to break apart the twenty-four hours of the day – they just aren’t.

In the days they’re best-friends because they worked so hard from that moment in the hallway to make it, worked hard to wrap themselves around the pieces of their lives to stop it all from falling apart. They succeeded, too, managed to keep all of the pieces together – only they left the piece of their hearts on the floor and never glued it to the rest of the puzzle, and maybe this would bring to their downfall.

 

 

-

 

 

Phil glows in the snow in thick gloves and red cheeks and Dan can’t look away, because he’s everything and always was and Dan was only pretending he ever stopped, and he isn’t over it, isn’t over it at all, but he makes himself look away because it’s the middle of the day and the day doesn’t hold any place for those thoughts.

The wind and the passerby erase their footsteps from the snow piling in the street, and Dan’s more silent than usual that night, doesn’t make any noises because he’s afraid he might lose his tongue and blurt out the truth, and he thinks it’s not fair because he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to be over Phil when he constantly finds himself underneath him.

He thinks it’s not fair because he’s not over Phil and he knows Phil isn’t over him but there’s still nothing they can do, and the snow makes everything white and blank and cold and Dan can feel his fingers freezing and wishes it was his heart instead.

 

 

-

 

 

Phil has hold on Dan’s wrists and Dan stops thinking for a moment because nothing is really visible except Phil’s eyes inches from his face, and he stares at the ceiling he can’t see and asks, “Why did we even break up?”, because he can’t step out of the habit of asking these questions in the middle of sex the same way he can’t step out of the habit of having sex with Phil.

Phil’s voice is the quietest and most sincere Dan’s heard it in maybe months, and he whispers, “I don’t know,” and that’s it, really, because he doesn’t, because neither does Dan, because maybe there wasn’t even a reason to begin with and maybe they let themselves get distracted by the big picture instead of focusing on the pieces.

Phil bites Dan’s neck and they don’t talk about it any further, and in the morning they’re still pretending like nothing ever happened, but Dan doesn’t know how to be over something that never really ended and he doesn’t know if he wants to be over it and he doesn’t know if he wants it to end.

 

 

-

 

 

They dance the waltz of the day and the night, dance around their problems and their issues and leave them lying on the floor, and Phil’s better at pretending they’re okay than Dan, who’s only good at pretending he’s not waiting for the catastrophe to strike.

Phil skirts over the issues lying on the floor while Dan stops and stares, stares at the piece of their hearts on the ground and wonders why they never picked it up and glued it to the puzzle. He wonders until Phil calls him from the office and then he makes himself forget, because it’s been too long, and Dan thinks he forgot how to use hot-melt adhesive years ago and is now too afraid to cause himself a burn.


End file.
